Thursday, March 10, 2016

She needs to get off the Spotify

REACHED
FOR COMMENT, CRANKY TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "MY BABY DON'T MESS AROUND --
NO, BARRY O WOULD PARDON ME. IF I WAS INDICTED, BARRY O WOULD
IMMEDIATELY PARDON ME BECAUSE I GOTS IT LIKE THAT, YOU SEE. I GOTS ALL
THIS JUNK IN THE TRUNK. MAMA'S MILK SHAKE BRINGS ALL THE BOYS TO THE
YARD, YEAH!"

And if things are going so well, why was a Senate Committee told today
that more US troops would be needed in Iraq to take back Mosul from the
Islamic State?

Three generals appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee
today: Gen Joseph Vogel (Special Operations Command), Gen David
Rodriguez (US Africa Command) and Gen Lloyd Austin (CENTCOM). The Chair
of the Committee is Senator John McCain, the Ranking Member is Senator
Jack Reed.

Here's the key exchange.

Senator Mike Rounds: General Austin with regards to the
challenges surrounding the retaking Mosul and Raqqa by December of this
year coming up. You've currently got about 4,000 ground forces, if I'm
correct. Is that enough? Do you have enough to assist in your plans to
retake Mosul and Raqqa? Gen Lloyd Austin: The, uh, the approach that we have used -- and
continue to use, as you know, Senator, to use the indigenous forces in
the operations on the ground and enable those forces with out aieral
fires and other enablers. As we look towards Raqqa and other and Mosul
clearly there will be things that we want to do to, uh, increase the
capability a bit to, uh -- to, uh increase the pace of operations and
that will require some additional capability and we've gone through and
done some analysis to see what types of -- what types of things we need
to provide and that's, uh, we've made those recommendations.Senator Mike Rounds: Could you share those recommendations with this Committee?Gen Lloyd Austin: Uh, no, sir. I would not care to do so because I have just provided those to my -- to my leadership.Senator Mike Rounds: But you have -- you have made those
recommendations and you're waiting on a response to your recommendations
at this time?Gen Lloyd Austin: Yes, sir, it's -- it'll work its way up the chain here.Senator Mike Rounds: If you were allowed to have, uh, more ground
troops what would be the capabilities that you could accomplish? Or
what could you accomplish if you had more individuals on the ground
thereGen Lloyd Austin: We could, uh, develop more, better human
intelligence. We could, uh, we could perhaps provide, uh, uh, more
advise and assist teams at various levels. We could, uh, we could
increase, uh, our assistance in terms of providing help with some
logistical issues and, uh, we could increase some elements of the
special operations footprint.Senator Mike Rounds: Assuming we were successful in retaking both of
those two towns, what then? Clearly, it's broken. So you come back in
and reestablish order and so forth -- when we take them back do we have a
plan in place -- a plan that we want to execute to bring back in a
sense of order to those communities? What does it look like right now
and what part would we play?Gen Lloyd Austin: Uhm, the short answer is "yes," Senator. First of
all, we will -- the Iraqis will take back uh, uh, Mosul and we will take
back -- we will work with the Syrian indigenous forces to take back
Raqqa as well. Uh, as you've seen us do, as they've taken back towns in
Iraq, that includes, uh, Ramadi, Baiji, Tikrit, uh, Sinjar and other
places the effort has been to reestablish order in those places and then
immediately try to uh, uh, do what's necessary to repair damage and
make sure that, uh, that we're taking care of the people and the people
are able to move back in and resume their lives.

So that's Gen Lloyd Austin playing coy and hinting about his
recommendation to send more US troops to Iraq while insisting he can't
really talk about it because it's going up the chain of command.

He's also telling fantasies of liberation where Ramadi and Tikrit were
peacefully liberated, where the homes weren't trashed, the stores and
homes looted and civilians harmed or killed.